two historical figures, one born on this day, one murdered on this day...

10/9/1967

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...Che's band was trapped in a ravine by pursuing Bolivian rangers, who had been trained by U.S. Special Forces experts On Oct. 8, 1967, as the guerrillas attempted to fight their way out of the encirclement, Che was hit in the left thigh by a bullet and his M-l carbine was shot out of his hands.

Taken alive to a nearby village, Che was executed the next day. After his hands were cut off for further fingerprinting, Che's body was burned beyond recognition and buried in a secret grave.

...Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure, polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies, memoirs, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while an Alberto Korda photograph of him entitled Guerrillero Heroico, was declared "the most famous photograph in the world."

He had a confidence, a certainty about what he was feeling that carried over into everything he sang. One of the things about John Lennon and the Beatles that went by a lot of people was how unusual it was for people in their class, from Liverpool, to be catapulted into the higher reaches of entertainment and society, without disguising their working-class roots and voices.

(Reuters) - John Lennon's son Julian and first wife Cynthia unveiled a monument to the late singer Saturday, the 70th anniversary of his birth, and said the time for mourning the former Beatle was over.

The presentation of a $350,000 18-foot structure, designed to promote peace, was one of several events being held around the world to celebrate one of pop music's most influential singers and songwriters who was murdered in New York in 1980 at the age of 40.

Internet search site Google paid tribute to Lennon with a hand-drawn logo and mini-video based on his hit "Imagine."

Manhattan planned a benefit concert and Lennon's widow Yoko Ono was to perform alongside their son Sean as the Plastic Ono Band in Reykjavik.

Cynthia, 71, and Julian Lennon, 47, looked on in Lennon's birthplace Liverpool as a choir performed his music. A crowd of several hundred people gathered in Chavasse Park for the event.

Lennon remains big business, and the anniversary, just months before the 30th anniversary of his death, has seen the release of a new wave of Lennon-related merchandise and music.

Ono oversaw the making of a digitally remastered Lennon catalog that includes eight studio albums and several newly compiled titles on the EMI Music label.

The White House released Wednesday a "most wanted" list of 22 suspected terrorists that includes not only Osama bin Laden and some of his top allies, but those thought responsible for a range of other deadly strikes.

The names include bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad. Al-Zawahiri is thought to be a top adviser to bin Laden and living in Afghanistan. The list also includes several suspects in the U.S. embassy bombings in Africa already named in U.S. court filings.

Bush announced the list formally Wednesday morning at FBI headquarters, accompanied by FBI Director Robert Mueller, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Secretary of State Colin Powell.

"We list their names, we publicize their pictures, we rob them of their secrecy," the president said at the FBI headquarters that has been at the epicenter of the massive investigation into the September 11 suicide hijackings that killed thousands in New York and Washington.

On the list are bin Laden, his two top deputies and several members of his al Qaeda network implicated in earlier bombings overseas against U.S. interests.

"They have blood on their hands from September 11 and from other acts against America in Kenya, Tanzania and Yemen," said Powell, who also announced a State Department reward program offering large bounties for assistance that leads to the terrorists' arrest.

The 22 indicted suspects are the most dangerous terrorists, Bush said, "the leaders, key supporters, planners and strategists. They must be found, they will be stopped."

Ashcroft said the new "most wanted" list will boost global publicity for the United States' manhunt and leave terrorists "no place to hide."

The list identifies only earlier-indicted defendants and not suspects in the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

In 1998, Q magazine readers voted Tunnel of Love the 91st greatest album of all time. In 1989, it was ranked #25 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 greatest albums of the 1980s". In 2003, the album was ranked number 475 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.

After the success of Born in the U.S.A., Springsteen looked to do something different. The deeply conflicted songs - "Brilliant Disguise," "Two Faces," "Tunnel of Love," "One Step Up" - seem to have been written as reflections of Springsteen's failing marriage to Julianne Phillips.

Similarly, the opening song, "Ain't Got You", is about being a famous rock star, while the closing "Valentine's Day" inverts the chords of "My Funny Valentine" to produce a death-haunted narrative full of the nature imagery he would pursue further in the early 1990s. "Walk Like a Man" is, like many previous Springsteen songs, about his relationship with his father.

The New York Times' Jon Pareles wrote that Tunnel of Love "turned inward, pondering love gone wrong. His first marriage, to the actress Julianne Phillips fell apart; he also decided to part ways with the E Street Band."

"Brilliant Disguise" has been called "a heart wrenching song about never being really able to know someone," and "a song about the doubts and struggles of married life."

Members of the E Street Band were used sparingly on the album; Springsteen recorded most of the parts himself, often with drum machines and synthesizers.

Commercially the album went triple platinum in the U.S., with "Brilliant Disguise" being one of his biggest hit singles, peaking at #5 on the Billboard Hot 100, "Tunnel of Love" also making the Top 10, reaching #9, and "One Step Up" just falling short.

The Date of the Wuchang Uprising which lead to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and the founding of the Republic of China, ending millenniums of imperial rule in the Middle Kingdom.

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The Republic of China was established in 1911, replacing the Qing Dynasty and ending over two thousand years of imperial rule in China. It is the oldest surviving republic in East Asia. The Republic of China on mainland China went through periods of warlordism, Japanese invasion, and civil war between the Kuomintang led Central Government and the Communists. With the loss of the mainland in the civil war the ROC government resettled to Taiwan, an island that had not been ruled by the republic, which sought to reclaim it until the Sino-Japanese Peace Treaty in Taipei ended the half-century Japanese Colonial period of Taiwan after World War II. During the latter half of the twenty century, the Republic of China on Taiwan has experienced rapid economic growth, industrialization, and democratization.

Novelist Elmore Leonard was born on this day in New Orleans in 1925. His father worked for General Motors, and the family moved frequently during Leonard's childhood, finally settling in Detroit.

During World War II, Leonard served in the U.S. Naval Reserve, then graduated from the University of Detroit with a degree in English in 1950. He decided to write either westerns or detective novels, whichever would generate the most income. After he sold a western for $1,000, he quickly churned out eight more. One of his books, Hombre (1961), was voted one of the best 25 westerns of all time by the Western Writers of America. It was made into a film in 1967.

Elmore Leonard, the “Dickens of Detroit”, is America's greatest living crime novelist. For more than half a century, he has turned out books at the rate of almost one a year: westerns, mystery fiction, but most importantly crime thrillers. He is the master of the genre, the inventor of a distinct fictional universe that is spare, violent, grittily humorous and set, for the most part, in Detroit.

10/11/1961

Steve Young is born.

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A left-handed thrower, Young was famous for his ability to "scramble" away from the pass rush.

Young was named the MVP in 1992 and 1994, the MVP of Super Bowl XXIX, and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

He holds the NFL record for highest career passer rating and won 6 NFL passing titles.

Shakur's case was on appeal but due to all of his legal fees he could not raise the $1.4 million bail. After serving 11 months of his one-and-a-half year to four-and-a-half year sentence, Shakur was released from the penitentiary.

Upon his release, Shakur immediately went back to song recording. He began a new group called Outlaw Immortalz. Shakur began recording his first album with Death Row and released the single "California Love" soon after.

On August 3, 1492, Columbus set sail from Palos, Spain, with three small ships, the Santa Maria, the Pinta, and the Nina. On October 12, the expedition reached land, probably Watling Island in the Bahamas. Later that month, Columbus sighted Cuba, which he thought was mainland China, and in December the expedition landed on Hispaniola, which Columbus thought might be Japan. He established a small colony there with 39 of his men. The explorer returned to Spain with gold, spices, and "Indian" captives in March 1493 and was received with the highest honors by the Spanish court. He was the first European to explore the Americas since the Vikings set up colonies in Greenland and Newfoundland in the 10th century.

the "new: world, huh??

10/12/1997

John Denver dies in an ultra-light aircraft accident

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Denver was killed when his Experimental Rutan Long-EZ plane crashed into the Pacific Ocean near Pacific Grove, CA.

In 1992, he was hospitalized for three days following an irregular heartbeat, and in 1999, his condition deteriorated rapidly. During this time, he lost 50 pounds. After undergoing dental surgery in the week before his death, he was in great pain and seemed unable to recover from the stress.

On October 12, 1999, Chamberlain died in Bel-Air, California. He was cremated. His agent Sy Goldberg stated Chamberlain died of congestive heart failure, and for about a month, doctors had been draining his legs of fluid that had accumulated because of the heart problem.

Considered by his contemporaries as one of the greatest and most dominant players in the history of the NBA.

Alfred Nobel is granted his 1st patent, a Swedish patent for the preparation of nitroglycerin.

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Nobel's father ownedd a factory that manufactured war materiel. Studying chemistry, Alfred learned of the powerful new explosive, nitroclycerine.

Around 1860, Alfred conducted repeated experiments involving great risks. He succeeded in manufacturing sufficient quantities of nitroglycerine without any mishaps. His father had been making similar experiments, but with less success. When his father realized his son's greater discoveries, he assisted Alfred patent the explosive that he aptly called "blasting oil."